UPDATE: Gestamp to expand and move to Volkswagen Chattanooga site

Gestamp produces stamped metal parts for Volkswagen world-wide. Chattanooga's new hot stamping line will become the 13th of its kind in Gestamp's U.S. footprint.

Tuesday, June 23rd 2015, 10:12 AM EDT by WRCB Staff

Updated:

Tuesday, June 23rd 2015, 4:11 PM EDT

UPDATE:

Gestamp will expand and move to Volkswagen Chattanooga site to manufacture parts for VW, reducing transportation costs and delivery times.

The investment of $180 million dollars will add over 500 new jobs to the area. The metal body parts will be utilized on the newly-refreshed VW Passat as well as the new new Volkswagen seven-seat SUV.

"These will be good paying, manufacturing jobs mostly," said Senator Bob Corker, who was at the press conference.

Several state and local political leaders were at the big announcement Tuesday.

Governor Bill Haslam says this new partnership falls in line with the original vision of Enterprise South.

"What you've done today is basically announce that 510 families here are going to be affected in a very positive way," said Governor Bill Haslam.

Gestamp produces stamped metal parts for Volkswagen world-wide. Chattanooga's new hot stamping line will become the 13th of its kind in Gestamp's U.S. footprint.

Volkswagen will swap 59 acres of land with the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County to provide land adjacent to VW Chattanooga for the new Gestamp facility. Both Chattanooga and Hamilton County will provide Volkswagen with land of a similar value, according to a new release.Currently Volkswagen uses press shops in several states to provide all the stamped metal parts for the Chattanooga-built Passat.

The new expanded partnership will allow all of the external sheet metal stamping and a majority of the structural parts to occur at or near Enterprise South, reducing the cost of transportation.

Gestamp's CEO says finding enough skilled labor is often a challenge, one he's confident Chattanooga is up for.

"For that it's just not an amount of people, we need to have these people are skilled," said Gestamp CEO Francisco Riberas, "We need to be able to find people with wisdom and also the training, and we need to do everything very quickly, because we need to be ready for the (sic) in one year."